Scientists Behaving Badly

By
Apparently some place called University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit got hacked. Their emails and data on global warming climate change are all over the internet. There was initial caution that the data and emails might have been fakes but they have since been confirmed to be the real deal. Why should anyone care about information hacked from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit? Well only because they've apparently been massaging their data to get the desired results with regard to global warming climate change. The desired result being that the planet is warming and that the warming is the fault of mankind. So much for the integrity of the scientific process.

There's a post full of updates here, the most amusing of which so far is, "UPDATE VI. The BBC declines to cover this story, preferring a piece on mammoth dung."

Reactions from our part of the globe can be found here. Both posts provide access to the leaked information for you to evaluate for yourself.

Dare one hope that this could bring about the death of cap and trade and other schemes designed to manipulate global climate in an attempt to halt global warming climate change? Now that's some hope and change that I could believe in.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 21, 2009 9:19 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MarkNovember 23, 2009 6:18 PM

    I don't know, I looked at this here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/ and it seems to explain that nothing nefarious is going on. Also, the BBC might have not covered it because covering leaked/stolen private emails is unethical.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SamNovember 23, 2009 8:27 PM

    Oh there's much much more to the conversation than what Realclimate.org has to say on the matter. And reporting on leaked/stolen private, even classified information hasn't seemed to cause all that much concern about ethics in the past. Curious that it becomes a concern now.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

What's in a flower?

By
Specifically hydrangea flowers. In this post I pointed out that anthocyanin (a family of plant pigments) appears blue at high pH, red at low pH and is responsible for the wide variety of colours in hydrangea flowers. Ilona pointed out that , "in hydrangeas you lower the ph for blue flowers (more acid) and raise it for pink (more alkaline)." I did a bit of checking and found that this is the case . At lower soil pH hydrangea flowers do appear blue and at higher soil pH they appear red. But soil pH is not the only thing that affects the colour of hydrangea flowers. It appears that pH inside the plant cell has an affect as well: Sepal Color Variation of Hydrangea macrophylla and Vacuolar pH Measured with a Proton-Selective Microelectrode Anthocyanin changes its color depending on pH (Goto 1987, Brouillard 1988, Goto and Kondo 1991). In strong acidic conditions it shows red, in neutral, purple and in alkaline, blue. But generally the vacuolar pH of plant cells is weakly aci
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more